The officials would not allow their names to be used in discussing the sensitive intelligence and military details of an operation that began Friday morning at 8:20 a.m. ET. Obama, on his way to view tornado damage in Alabama, made the decision to send a small U.S. team in helicopters into the compound to go after bin Laden.
For the president, it was the culmination of months of top-secret security meetings with his top aides as operatives closed in on bin Laden overseas. Very few people in the U.S. government knew anything about it; no one overseas was told.
In the months leading up to Sunday's dramatic operation, Obama convened nine national security meetings on the subject. Most were held since mid-March — but it was in August 2010 that agents discovered the sprawling compound where bin Laden was hiding.
They said they were shocked by what they saw: a compound eight times larger than any in the area. It was built at the end of a dirt road, they now believe with the express purpose of hiding bin Laden and his family.
The place had no phone or Internet service. The residents, who included the courier and his brother and their families, burned their garbage instead of putting out for collection like everyone else.
It has 18-foot walls, two security gates, and no exterior windows. On a third-floor balcony, there were 7-foot high privacy walls.
Officials are not positive, even now, exactly who was living with bin Laden, but they believe he had several family members there, including his youngest wife.
The officials did not say why they chose Sunday to make their dramatic raid after months of red-teaming the operation.
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